Anniversary
by chaosattractor
Summary: A year after Mello joins the Mafia, he puts his boldest plan yet into action. Originally written for a contest whose theme was "one year later."


Mello was in the middle of being bored to death by a game of poker when his cell phone rang. He leapt over the back of the couch immediately, cards fluttering unnoticed to the floor, and yanked his phone from his back pocket. As he flipped it open, Rod's phone rang, and then Skinner's. Mello's heart raced with excitement.

"It's Mello. Tell me everything."

"It went down just like you said it would! Twenty of Bartolli's guys tried to storm the joint, but we were ready with that ambush. They didn't get a single shot off. We had to ice five of 'em, but we took the rest as hostages like you asked."

Mello crowed in triumph. "Perfect! Now get your asses out of there before the

cops show up."

"Okay, I'll—"

Mello flipped the phone shut and grinned in triumph, snapping off a chunk of chocolate and downing it hungrily as he waited for Rod to finish his call. Bartolli had acted exactly as he had predicted: targeting the warehouse that housed the Ross family's stock of drugs, sending a large number of his men, timing the assault for late on a Saturday night when he expected the Ross forces to be too drunk and disorganized to retaliate. Mello had prepared for all of it. Guards had been doubled, tripled on weekends, and the warehouse had been emptied of anything connecting it to the Ross family weeks ago.

Rod finally hung up, and Mello began talking immediately. "Tonight Bartolli tried to strike at the very heart of the Ross business." All eyes tracked him as he prowled across the room, a caged predator. "I say we retaliate in kind!" He turned to Rod expectantly. He was the Boss; the official order had to come from him.

Rod was sitting on the couch with a blonde woman hanging off of his arm, as usual. He wasted precious moments sipping his drink with maddening calm before he spoke. "We'll follow Mello's plan," he declared, his rumbling voice firm. "In the year he's been with us, he's never been wrong."

His order was followed instantly. All of the men picked up their phones in unison and began making the calls that would coordinate the Ross forces that were spread across L.A. Mello, however, was staring at Rod in surprise. He'd said the same thing, what—two days ago? But he had quoted eleven months, then. For the first time, Mello wondered just how accurately Rod was keeping track of this.

"A year?" he said aloud. Rod nodded. "Today?" he hazarded. The Boss nodded again, and Mello laughed. "Why do you even remember that? I didn't."

Rod shrugged noncommittally. "It was one of the most interesting days of my life," he answered frankly. "Nothing's been the same since."

Mello regarded the man for a long moment as he popped the last of his chocolate bar into his mouth. Then he smiled slyly and fluttered his lashes as he slowly licked the last traces of chocolate off of one gloved finger. "So you're saying that this is our one-year anniversary, Rod?"

The woman's reaction was immediate. She inhaled sharply and dug her fingernails into Rod's arm. She knew competition when she saw it.

Rod just gave him a pained look. "You have a strange sense of humor, Mello."

Mello responded by unrepentantly licking a second finger. Then he jumped up. Most of the men had finished their phone calls and were now loading their guns. "Come on. Let's go."

They moved out. No bikes or limos tonight—they needed subtlety. They piled into a convoy of cars and began the drive to Bartolli's headquarters. Skinner chauffeured Mello and Rod. The trip was only twenty minutes long, but right now it felt like an eternity. Mello's mind wandered as his body itched for action.

One year. He had been in the Mafia for a year. Truth be told, it felt like much longer than that—so much had changed. It had taken months of work to even rate a meeting with a man as powerful as Rod Ross. Mello's small drug trade operation had been a labor of love—or determination, at least. Comprised of junkies and the low-level dealers that weren't worthy of Mafia notice, it had required his constant attention just to keep from imploding. But it had become a thorn in the sides of the Mafia families, a rival that sapped just enough profit for them to pay attention to the way the letter M was being whispered on the streets.

Mello's proposition to Rod had been an offer to end the stalemate in the three-way turf war the Ross clan had been trapped in for years. His plan was simple. First he would hijack the next Moretti family drug shipment and turn the profits over to Rod. In return, Rod would give him access to some of that money and his Mafia connections for one month. Mello would use that month to topple the Moretti family. Once he succeeded, he would have proven himself and Rod would induct him into the Mafia officially as the Consigliere of the Ross family. They would then work together against Bartolli. When that final rival had been eliminated, Rod would allow Mello to divert resources to pursue his own pet project: catching Kira.

Rod, gambling man that he was, had agreed. Mello had honestly expected to be laughed out of his office.

Mello glanced at him sidelong. "Rod, can I ask you something? In the spirit of our anniversary."

"Sure," he replied easily. "But quit calling it that."

Mello grinned. "Okay. How come you let me join the Mafia?"

Rod raised his eyebrows at the direct question. He stared at Mello for several seconds as he tried to figure out what he was driving at. "It was easy," he said finally. "The deal you proposed meant that I didn't risk anything, but I stood to gain a lot if you were for real."

Mello shook his head. He knew that; he had carefully designed it with that very goal in mind. "That's not what I meant." There were other reasons for a Mob boss to have qualms about Mello. His questionable degree of Italian heritage. His outsider status. His youth. And, of course, there were the twin issues of his distinctly un-Mafia appearance and blatant homosexuality. He knew he didn't look like a gangster should. They were supposed to be homely middle-aged Italian men, not pretty boys with long hair, painted nails and a penchant to show skin. It didn't take a Wammy's House education to deduce that achieving his goals would be much easier if he looked different. It had been one of his toughest decisions before he made his bid to join. Should he tone himself down? Buy some more modest clothes, cut his hair short, throw away his eyeliner pencil? Fake attraction to women, and then lie if someone asked a direct question about his sexuality?

No. It was out of the question. He had walked out of Wammy's House and forsaken is right to be L's heir so that he could do things _his_ own way. If he was going to cram himself into a suit and pretend to be something he was not, then he might as well be back there working alongside Near. He would stand or fall as Mello; it was as simple as that.

He watched Rod closely. "You had to know that letting me join would cause you problems," he commented. Though "problems" was a massive understatement. Mello's promotion to Consigliere had nearly caused world war three in Rod's hideout. The men couldn't contradict the Boss's orders, but they didn't have to take them gracefully either. They played haze-the-fag, complete with buy-ins and rewards for those who were the most creative. Mello became the subject of every betting pool. They put money on how long he would stay alive, when he would break down and cry, who would be the first to rape him. Those months had been harrowing, with Mello forced to watch his back around his own men as well as his enemies. He had learned a whole new level of ruthlessness in order to weed foes out of the Ross organization. Those months had aged him, hardening him beyond what he thought was possible.

Rod hesitated, clearly debating whether it was wise to speak his mind. Finally, he did. "I honestly thought that I could get you some suits and introduce you to our most talented whores, and you'd learn to fit in."

Mello's eyes widened, and then he roared with laughter. He remembered Rod's bids to get him to "dress like a man," and his nonplussed disdain when Mello discovered what black leather could do for him. Mello's staunch refusal to patronize the whorehouses had also caused no end of problems. He had forged through them all. "It didn't work," he said smugly.

Rod looked at him in resignation. "That's the truth," he agreed. The days of animosity between Mello and the rest of the Ross family were long gone. Mello had proven himself beyond a doubt, and he had earned their loyalty. The men now followed his orders without question, as if they came from God himself. They waited on him hand and foot, if he so chose; he merely had to hold his palm out and chocolate would be placed in it. They tripped over themselves to satisfy his whims. Mello was willing to bet that if he asked for a naked boy to be brought to him on a leash, they'd have one there within the hour. Nobody objected to his dress style anymore—the opposite, in fact. Most of the men had come to appreciate his charms. Mello played seduce-the-homophobe when he was bored, and he had an ironically high success rate.

No, Rod hadn't made a shred of headway in making Mello fit into the Mafia. Instead, Mello had reshaped the Mafia to fit him.

The car came to a halt behind Bartolli's headquarters. Mello pulled out his cell phone and fiddled with it impatiently, wishing the call would come.

"Mello." Rod's voice was a welcome distraction. "Since you asked a question, I'm going to ask you one too. Why me?" He was watching Mello keenly. "Bartolli's territory was bigger than mine back then."

A smile bloomed slowly across Mello's face and his esteem for Rod went up another notch. The man already knew the answer. "I made the exact same offer to him first," he answered softly.

"Ah." Rod nodded, unperturbed. "So he turned you down."

Mello smiled sourly. "Emphatically."

"So this is personal, between you and him. I never knew that."

Mello grinned. His blood was singing in anticipation of revenge. He couldn't _wait._ But in the midst of it, he felt a discordant flash of unease. It wasn't just himself and Bartolli this time around. The man's entire family hung in the balance. He had three daughters, the youngest just six years old. Mello might have to kill them.

He shook himself. Now was no time for an attack of conscience. He couldn't risk showing even an instant of weakness. "Skinner—" He waved, and Skinner took his meaning right away. He passed back the hand mirror with neat lines of white powder and a rolled bill almost immediately. Mello took three lines without so much as breathing in between.

The drug crackled through him like electricity, setting his mind on fire, blooming down his spine in a rush of pure ecstasy. He closed his eyes and lost himself in it for seconds that felt like exquisite lifetimes. All traces of doubt and worry were blasted away like scraps of paper in the heart of an inferno. His mind raced and power surged through his body. Invulnerability coated him, spreading across his skin like liquid flame.

When the world came back, he opened his eyes. He was ready for anything now. He felt sublime. Rod and Skinner were both watching him, and he smiled at them beneath half-lidded eyes.

His phone rang. Mello almost dropped it in his haste to answer. "Is it done?"

"It's done," confirmed the voice on the other end.

Mello fairly burst from the car. His movement was the cue; the rest of the men streamed from their vehicles and followed him. He allowed two of them to precede him into the building. They passed eight bodies en route to Bartolli's inner sanctum, the final two lying in front of the door to his office. Mello stepped over them in order to enter.

He grinned predatorily when he saw the scene inside. Bartolli was gagged and bound to a chair by his ankles and wrists, already bleeding from a cut on his scalp. Two of Mello's men flanked him, and the rest lined the walls warily.

"Ah," sighed Mello happily. It was perfect. He crossed the room to lean down and peer at Bartolli's face. The man's eyes widened in fear when he realized who it was. One year ago, Mello had faced this man in this very same office and proposed that they work together. One year ago, this man had called him a faggot and sworn to shoot him personally if he ever interfered with his business again. Mello had only escaped with his life because he'd had the foresight to station his men within easy killing distance of Bartolli's brothers.

Now they were facing each other once again, and this time it was Mello who had all the power. He watched Bartolli's eyes glaze over as understanding dawned. It was delightful.

"My oh my," he murmured. "How the times change." He straightened and began to turn around, but changed his mind as fast as lightning. He whirled and punched Bartolli in the nose hard enough that the chair toppled over backwards. His head hit the floor with a resounding crack.

Mello gestured for two of his men to right the chair. Bartolli's exclamations of pain were muffled by the gag, but blood was flowing freely from the ruins of his nose. Mello crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose at the man. "Oh c'mon, does it really hurt that much to get hit?" He smirked. "By a faggot?"

Bartolli writhed. He couldn't breathe around the blood and the gag. Mello gestured, and one of his men stepped forward with a knife. A moment of panic flashed across Bartolli's face, but all the man did was cut the gag open and toss the blood-soaked rag aside.

Bartolli coughed and spit blood, then looked at Mello with watering eyes. "There's no need for that," he gasped hoarsely. "Mello—Don Ross—I'm sure we can do business together. What is it you want?"

Mello snorted. "Not to do business with you, that's for sure." He spun away and went to Bartolli's desk, where he made space by the simple expedient of sweeping everything to the floor. Then he hopped up on it and perched with one leg dangling over the side. He held out a hand, and a chocolate bar was deposited there. "Why don't you bring in our special guests," he suggested mildly.

The door guard nodded and made a very brief phone call. Mello nonchalantly opened the chocolate bar and licked it. "They're coming," the guard reported.

A moment later, the first hostage arrived. It was Bartolli's brother, bound and gagged, escorted at gunpoint by two members of the Ross family. He was followed by one of his cousins, and then the Consigliere. The parade continued until it included all of Bartolli's high-ranking men. They were shoved into the corner like cattle as the room became more crowded. Bartolli's jaw worked silently as he took it in, and Mello could practically see the gears turning in his head as he worked it out. The Ross family had brought the Bartolli family completely to its knees in less than an hour. It was an awesome and irrefutable display of power.

When Bartolli's gaze moved back to Mello, his face held the forerunners of panic. "What is this?" he demanded.

Mello grinned. "What do you think it is? This is the end of your family."

Bartolli shook his head rapidly. "No. No! You don't want to do this! You're going to get into big trouble when the other bosses find out! You'll never get away with it!"

Mello shook his head sadly as he regarded the man. Bartolli didn't understand how hopeless his position was yet. Over the past year, Mello had forged alliances with the major families from every city. New York first—weeks worth of hard work and cajoling, but by the end of it he had alliances with every single family of note, and there wasn't a single one that didn't owe him favors. The Boston families had been easy, they were more than happy to work with whoever was in power on the west coast. The Chicago families had come to _him_ asking for an alliance_. _M was now a letter spoken with awe and fear all across the country. Nobody had ever risen so far, so fast. He was changing the very way the Mafia worked, reshaping it into what was useful to him with a reach that extended far beyond the confines of Rod Ross's hideout. If he gave the word, he could very nearly bring the whole country to a grinding halt.

All that, and he still faced resistance right here in his back yard. Giovanni Bartolli, a man who was too stupid to realize that Mello had become unstoppable, and too stubborn to acknowledge that the battle was already lost.

That was going to change tonight. Mello leapt off the desk in order to lean close to him and smile. "Who do you think is going to save you?" he asked softly. "They're all my allies, now." He waved with one hand, and the trump card hostages of the evening were dragged in. Bartolli's wife and three daughters, barefoot and clad in nightgowns, all of them sobbing. Two of the three girls shrieked when they saw their father bloodied and beaten.

Bartolli's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Oh no. Jesus, no. They have nothing to do with it! Mello, please!"

Mello smiled and strolled lazily around Bartolli's chair. "Tell you what, Giovanni—can I call you Giovanni?—I'll let you choose the order I use to kill them. What do you think? Youngest to oldest, or oldest to youngest?"

Bartolli shook his head jerkily. "Don't do this. Please. Please! I'll do whatever you want, just spare them!"

Mello ignored him. "I think youngest to oldest makes the most sense. Don't you?" He beckoned, and the six-year-old girl was brought to him. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her around to face her father.

"Ow! Ow it hurts!" she sobbed, scrabbling at his arm futilely. "Let go of me! Please!"

Deep inside of Mello, something quailed. But it was silenced by cocaine and sheer determination. _Whatever it took _to be number one. That was what he had sworn. So many bodies littered his wake already; what were a few more? He was strong enough to go through with even this without flinching. When he lifted his gun to her temple, he was ready to paint the walls with her brains without so much as batting an eye.

He met Bartolli's eyes. There were tears there now. The other man searched his face, looking for any traces of bluffing or hesitation, and found none. His face sagged into a mask of hopelessness and despair, and he began to weep freely. "Please," he begged. "Anything but this. Kill me first."

A manic grin spread across Mello's face. This was victory. He was looking at a broken man now. Mafia protocol was clear: kill a few cousins, have the men rape and murder Bartolli's wife and daughters while he watched, then put a bullet through his skull. Let the broken remainder of the family be run by one of his more tractable brothers. But the Bartollis were a traditional family, all related to one another. The moment Mello pulled the trigger, the rest of the Bartollis would transform into bitter enemies hell-bent on revenge. Killing one meant that he would have to kill them all. It was going to be a bloodbath.

Mello cocked the trigger. A woman screamed. No way was he going to let the men have their way with a girl this young, he would at least give her a clean death. Bartolli wept. The girl clutched weakly at his hand and cried. Mello took a deep breath.

No. There was a third option. Now that he had reached this crossroads, he could see that it was actually the best choice. Probably no other gangster in the history of the Mafia would have taken it; but Mello was unlike any other gangster. He was bold; that was why he had been so successful.

He leaned in close to Bartolli. "You're lucky I'm a God-fearing man," he murmured. "Otherwise everyone in this room would be dead." He swung the gun to Bartolli's chin instead. "I want you out of my city by tomorrow morning. Do you understand me?" Very slowly and uncertainly, Bartolli nodded. "My men will go with you to make sure there are no incidents of any sort. If I ever see your face in L.A. again, I'll shoot you on the spot. Understood?" Another jerky nod.

Mello straightened abruptly. The whole room gasped when he dropped the gun to his side. No one had expected this, not even Mello's men. Not even Mello himself, five minutes ago. Bartolli stared at him with round eyes that now showed a glimmer of hope. "Thank you so much," he whispered hoarsely.

The tableau was shattered when Mello let go of the girl and she dashed back to her waiting sisters. Bartolli's wife cried out in thanks and then collapsed to the ground, weeping tears of joy.

Mello rounded on the hostages, and several of them took inadvertent steps backwards at the look on his face. "All of you work for Don Ross now. Anyone who can't handle that, speak up now."

Unsurprisingly, no one did. Mello cut Bartolli free of his bindings, and he immediately dashed into a group hug with his wife and daughters. The rest of Mello's men followed suit and released their hostages. The room had turned into a joyful family reunion by the time the Ross troops withdrew.

Mello had won. It was a complete victory, and hardly any lives had been lost in the process. It was probably the most bloodless end to a family feud in the history of the Mafia. Perhaps God had taken pity on him because of the already tattered state of his immortal soul. He crossed himself and offered a brief prayer of thanks the moment he had climbed into the car.

When he opened his eyes, Rod was watching him closely. "You know, Mello, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were too soft for this line of work."

Mello waved dismissively. "Those people are free manpower. They can give us access to all of their accounts and show us the ins and outs of their operation. It's just a smart business decision, Rod."

Rod eyed him skeptically for a moment longer, but wisely kept further opinions to himself. Deep inside of Mello, that note of discord sounded again. Six years old. Gun to her head. He had nearly done it. Plus, there was a reason why he had never considered that third option until now—because it was far riskier than simply killing everyone. Any attempt to justify it as the wisest option was just a pretense, and he knew it. The moment the cocaine was purged from his system he was going to be trapped between those two fears, that he was either a monster or a weakling. He could feel it, a threatening storm cloud on the horizon. Tomorrow morning was going to be bad.

But not now. Right now, the drug and the taste of victory flattened all else. There was only triumph. He caught Rod's eye.

"Well, Don Ross, L.A. belongs to you, and with it so does the entire United States." He grinned and took an oversized bite of chocolate. "You know what comes next, don't you?"

"Tomorrow we work out the details of business with the Bartollis," replied Rod.

Mello dismissed that with a wave. "Bigger than that."

"Kira," said Rod. "We hunt him down and take his murder notebook, and then we don't have to worry about being killed."

Mello growled in irritation. "Bigger than that, even! Rod, you think too small. We already have strong connections in Japan that we can use on Kira. I've been in touch with the Sicilians. _They _called _us,_ did you know that? You don't need to worry about Europe, most of that continent is already under our thumb." Rod was staring at him in astonishment. "What?" he demanded. "Did you think I just sat on my ass for the past year while Kira ran wild?"

"Apparently not," muttered Rod. "I'll never get used to how far ahead your mind always is." He shook his head. "I give up. What's next if not Kira?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Mello grinned and licked at the chocolate bar. "The world."

Rod smiled slowly. "You're right. I do think too small." He nodded. "I like the sound of that. Next, the world."


End file.
